just returned
 

governors residence in yangon was everything you could want, great service, good rooms,good pool. In inle lake stayed at inle princes resort, this also was a great hotel.
Both hotels exceeded my expectations

I think we are crossing paths today. We stayed at Inle Princess, and it was very nice. Good base to tour the lake, and other areas. I do believe best way to see bagan and/or mandalay is via river, you really get a feeling for life along the banks and still get out of the boat for touring during the day including sagaing, monasteries, and a very intersting nunnery/convent.

booking Inle Princess Resort?
 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'd appreciate advise re booking a room at the highly recommended Inle Princess Resort. I've visited their website (http://inleprincessresort.net/), but unless I've overlooked it, I don't see anywhere on that site to book a room online. I've written to their email contacts, but have not received a response. I'm not immediately seeing any online booking sites listing them (other than a few outdated links to Agoda.com, which no longer appears to access their room inventory).

TIA for friendly advise of how to book a room there...!

I ended up staying at Inle Resort (NOT Inle Princess). I had one of the over water bungalows at the front of the property with great sunset views. Inle Resort is one of the closest to the entrance to the Lake so the trip to/from town is shorter. I thought it was quite nice, although the restaurant prices seemed quite high to me. Nice breakfast spread though. Had a bit of an ant issue in my bungalow.

Might be worth considering. I didn't book directly though as I had used a travel agent and they took care of everything.

You will enjoy the Princess. The current best way to contact them is to email, then wait 2 days for reply. If you don't wish to engage a local agent ( that is what they want) ring them directly. After being used to instant reponses, I found it difficult to wait also, so in the end i phoned ahead all the time. Mind you, I got the concierge at the current hotel to double check the next hotel for me too

How will you be arriving at the resort. We booked through a US based travel agent as an add-on to an Orient Express boat cruise. We flew to Heho airport and then had a combination drive and then boat transfer to the hotel. I wouldnt want to arrive in Heho without an assurance I had the right arrangements to get to the hotel. One of the things that makes Inle Lake so special is that it is still undeveloped, so a slow response to email is not unexpected. Definitely call the resort and get some confirmation of the room and all the arrangements. If you are in the Lake area for market day, that would be an added bonus.

I thought there was a different market every day at different villages around the lake.

My guide insisted on taking me to the Sunday market. I hate markets. I hated that one too. If you've been to one market in SE Asia you've been to them all.

Actually this was a local type market not selling tourist items. We like to see the local foods and storage items like baskets and bought some homemade kitchen utensils that we use and remind us of being there. YMMV, but I think it gives you some insight into the locale, especially in a place like Myanmar where its interesting to see a little capitalism taking hold.

With a little luck, I'm predicting this thread is about to see a surge of activity.....

Travel agent in the US or local? About how much did u pay? How did u get your visa?

Visited Myanmar in January. They were not issuing visas on landing. We had to get ours here in US at UN mission in NYC. Had to give up passports and wait took over 2 weeks. Check to see if Visas on Arrival is in play. Might be since things are warming up with the west. Allow yourself time. If you're going to Yangon, I can recommend a good travel agent.

I had to put off my trip b/c they are not doing visa on arrival for US citizens and I didn't have 2 weeks to be without my passport. Evisa isn't working yet hope soon. Please do send info public or pm is fine. I will be going ;). Just not sure which month

I see you are not going now, but to answer, I arranged my trip via the agency I use in Bangkok who in turn uses a partner in Myanmar to handle everything in-country. Which ended up leading to some issues. In the end things worked out OK.

I live in the DC area so I just took my passport to the embassy along with a FedEx envelope for them to send it to me when it was done. Took about 10 business days as they said it would. There was a mountain of visa applications in their little basement office.

We went to myanmar several years ago and just mailed our visa app with FedEx envelope to the embassy in dc. As glennaa11 says. Process was efficient and passport arrived safely at our home in 10 business days. No need to add extra expense of a visa service.

Visa on arrival is still suspended so you have to get a visa before coming (This is unlikely to change in the near future). But hopefully the e-visa system they are setting up will make things easier.

The Bangkok embassy can issue same day visas if you have a couple of days in Bangkok